


The Greatest Man I Never Knew

by halfwit



Series: In Sickness and In Health [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Awesome Bobby, Awesome Dean, Canonical Character Death, Caring Castiel, Cuddling husbands, Cute Dean, Domestic destiel, F/M, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Married Destiel, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of Death, Protective Castiel, Sad Dean, Some Fluff, some tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:51:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4070776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwit/pseuds/halfwit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel asks Dean one night why the other man never wants them to go to bed angry and without saying "I love you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greatest Man I Never Knew

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this takes place about five years after the last chapter of "No Day But Today," However, I did try to write it in such a way that it also could be a stand alone piece.

The first time Castiel came across the well-worn brown leather photo album, it was a few weeks after he and Dean moved into their new home - their first as a married couple.

Running his hands along the yellowed edges, Castiel hesitated for a moment before opening the slightly cracked cover. He knew the album was not his, so it could only belong to his new husband; however, he felt as though viewing the contents of the book would be too intimate - an absurd thought after all that he and Dean had shared. The dark-haired man knew the photos contained in the album most likely were among Dean’s most cherished possessions, but in all the years they had been together, he had never seen the book, or its contents. It felt like a violation of his husband’s trust to see these for the first time alone.

Carefully, Castiel replaced the worn volume back into the box. He made a note to tell Dean to unpack the remaining contents later.

After that day, Castiel almost forgot about the old photo album he found. He and Dean got caught up too much in establishing their new routines as a married couple. The pair laughed at themselves for their awkwardness, they would have thought the time they spent living together in college would have prepared them for wedded bliss; but that was not the case.

Sharing a dorm room with minimal “real world” responsibilities was light years away from what they found their first few years as husbands to be. No matter how they argued or irritated one another, each night they embraced and told each other they loved the other before bed. Dean, in a rare moment of sentimentality explained it to Cas laying in bed one night.

“My mom and dad had fought the day before she died,” Dean confessed softly, carding his fingers idly through Castiel’s hair. Castiel was quiet, head resting on the taller man’s chest as they waiting for sleep to come. Dean so seldomly spoke of his mother - her death caused a large chunk of Dean’s heart to be buried with her. Sam often complained his brother guarded his memories of their mother so jealously that he didn’t even share many of the stories with the youngest son, who never knew their mother - never knew their father before.

Castiel remained silent. The only action he took was to reach out and grab his husband’s free hand and gently caress his thumb over the other man’s calloused knuckles. He didn’t want Dean to stop talking if he felt willing to share, but he wanted to provide some sort of comfort to his husband, as well.

“I was only four years old at the time,” the green-eyed man continued, his hand never ceasing in its path through Castiel’s already rumpled raven locks. “I didn’t understand a lot of what was going on. I just knew that Daddy wasn’t staying at the house with Mommy, me, and baby Sammy.

“That day, he came to pick me up from school,” Dean remembered, voice roughened by tears, “he had never really done that before, it was more my mom’s job, I remember being so excited that I ran and threw myself at him. Instead of throwing me up in the air to catch me like I thought he would, he had this funny, blank look on his face I’d never seen before. He told me straight out that Mom had been killed in an accident.”

Castiel felt a sharp sting in his eyes as he tried to keep his tears at bay. He had never been particularly fond of John Winchester, or how he had treated his boys, but to hear how heartless he had been to break the news to his young son in that manner was unforgivable.

“He wasn’t heartless, Cas,” Dean admonished and Castiel blushed, not realizing he had said the last part out loud. “His other half had been taken from him. For all their faults as a married couple and for how my Dad practically towered over my mother, she was the one with all the strength in the family. She was the one who kept everyone together...whole. When he lost her, something inside of him snapped.

“I think what was worse was the guilt he felt about the whole thing.”

Maneuvering from his comfortable position on his husband’s chest, Castiel sat up, blue eyes intently staring at the other man, head tilting slightly to the side in unspoken question.

“He never forgave himself for living, for not being in the car with her,” Dean said, a single tear trickling down his face unabated. “He thought if they hadn’t been arguing, if he had been home, she never would have been in the car that day and the accident never would have happened. He never forgave himself for missing one last opportunity to tell her he loved her. The guilt and pain he felt at that just destroyed him.”

“But he had responsibilities,” Castiel argued, angry at the other man’s seeming acceptance of his father’s neglect.

“Hush,” Dean said softly, taking advantage of their new position on the bed to lean his head onto Castiel’s shoulder. “He did the best he could for as long as he could.”

The blue-eyed man didn’t agree with his husband, but opted to keep his opinion to himself.

Together they sat for several moments, each lost in their own thoughts, Dean in his memories of the past, and Castiel about the experiences that shaped the perfectly flawed mate he had chosen from himself.

“Dean?” Cas queried after a while.

“Hmmm,” came the reply of a sleepy husband.

“Why tonight?”

“Why tonight what,” Dean threw back, aiming for an innocent tone, but the other man knew him too well.

Sighing, Castiel turned, dislodging his lover from his comfortable perch.

“Hey,” Dean grumped. “I was comfortable.”

“Maybe you should have answered my question without playing dumb and you could still be comfortable,” Castiel retorted, without heat.

Dean leaned over and switched on their bedside lamp. Both men blinked dazedly against the too-sudden brightness in the room. Not speaking, Dean threw off the comforter and walked to their closet. Castiel could hear fumblings and the rustling of paper from the doorway, but he remained where Dean left him.

After a few moments, Dean came back into the room, carrying a distantly familiar brown leather book - the photo album that Castiel remembered seeing that day almost five years ago.

Settling back onto the bed, Dean carefully placed the book into Castiel’s lap, as though it were a child who could be hurt, or a treasure too precious to damage - and for Dean that probably was the case.

“This is all I have left of her,” Dean said softly, voice breaking ever so slightly at the end.

“Dean,” Castiel began, he didn’t know how things had turned so serious.

“I never want us to go to bed angry, or to leave without saying ‘I love you,’” Dean continued doggedly, ‘because even though I am not the best at showing my emotions, I don’t want to ever have the same kinds of regret that my father did.

“We know, you and me, Cas, better than anyone how short, how tenuous life can be,” Dean said, giving his husband a pointed look.

The shorter man swallowed against a sudden flood of emotion. Yes, they did know how short life could be. At 17-years-old Dean had been diagnosed with, and overcame, gastric cancer. Knowing that Dean could have died put a lot of things in perspective for the teenaged friends who decided it was high time for them to get together.

“Why now?” Castiel asked, trying to keep his voice steady. He knew his husband just was holding on to his own emotions, if Cas started crying, Dean wouldn’t be far behind.

"You asked?” Dean replied, but something about the response rang hollow for the other man, who had too many years of studying Winchester to believe the simple response.

“So, if I would have asked sooner, you would have told me?” Cas pushed.

“No,” Dean confirmed, forest green eyes luminous with unshed tear.

The sounds of the late evening filtered through their room as the two men stared at each other. Blue locked with green in an intense standoff; neither one ready to give in.

With a sigh and a laugh dry enough it could have been a choked sob, Dean gave in, as he always did to Cas’ persuasion.

“My dad died.”

Of all the things he had been expecting, Castiel never thought that was what brought on these revelations.

“Wh-what?” Castiel stammered out in his surprised. “When? How? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Dean inched closer to his husband and plucked the precious album from the other’s hands, Dean’s own long, slightly freckled fingers absently stroking the gilded edges, much like he had done earlier to his husband’s hair.

“I got the call today while I was working rounds at the hospital,” Dean said. “Some attorney called me and said he was calling to inform me I had been named in the last will and testament of John Winchester and asked if I was his son.

“Turns out the old man finally did what he had been trying to do for so many years...he drank himself to death. Lawyer said his liver was swiss cheesed and there wasn’t much anyone could do for him. He basically pickled himself.

“Guess he left me a few things, the house and a little bit of money to split with Sammy. He didn’t have much. He was just a lonely, old man.”

“Have you talked to Sam?” Castiel asked, marvelling at how well Dean seemed to be coping with this.

“Yeah,” Dean admitted. “Talked to him as soon as I got off the horn with the lawyer. He wasn’t too broken up about it. Said that Bobby and I had been more fathers to him than John.”

“And you?”

Dean was quiet for a moment, and Castiel could see the other man carefully considering what he wanted to say. Instead of speaking, after a moment, Dean opened the heavy leather cover of the album, and pointed to the first picture.

The faded photograph showed a stunningly beautiful blonde woman with Dean’s startling green eyes, which Castiel could see even from the celluloid sparkled with warmth and a hint of mischief. Biting back a soft gasp, Castiel was amazed to see what a beautiful woman Mary Winchester was.

“That was when they moved into the house in Lawrence,” Dean said, his own voice roughened with emotions. “My Mama loved that house. I remember in my room she let me hang up silly animal posters and my bed was always full of the softest teddy bears.”

Gently, Castiel turned the page and smiled when he saw a picture of a radiant (and very pregnant) Mary with a feisty three-year old Dean - all bleached blond and terrible bowl cut hair.

The next picture showed Mary looking exhausted, but so at peace, holding a newborn baby boy in one arm with another curled around a wide-eyed little Dean, the photograph obviously taken not long after Sam had been born.

Neither Dean nor Castiel spoke much as they flipped carefully through the pages of the life that was, the almost picturesque childhood that was interrupted. Castiel’s heart hurt to see how carefree and happy Dean looked in these pictures; because, even though he knew his husband was content and happy in life, his eyes still were shadowed by pain and sadness. His all-too-expressive eyes that spoke of growing up too fast and having to take care of responsibilities before he ever should have.

The last pictures were the ones Castiel found most arresting. They were of John with his boys. The man in those pictures was someone that Castiel had never had a chance to meet, sadly neither had his youngest son. Smiling contentedly from the frozen moment, John Winchester looked younger than Castiel had ever seen him. The deep lines in his brow and lining his mouth were not evident. The only lines photo-John had were deep laugh lines framing warm chocolate brown eyes.

All the pictures in the album were taken before Mary’s death, and they showed a father who deeply loved his wife and was loving and playful with his young sons. These photographs showed a young, happy family, full of promise - before one action cut everything far too short.

“There are times when I am in between sleep and waking when I can’t quite tell what is a dream or not,” Dean admits, tears more steadily leaking from his eyes, some of the drops getting caught on his long lashes. “Times when I have flashes of my dad taking me to baseball games, or going to the park to swing, or tossing a baseball around.

“I know we did those things before, and I know they are memories, but they seem to have happened so long ago that they don’t seem real. My da...John, was a fucked up man. He hurt me deeper than I ever thought possible when he railed against me when he found out we were together, from that time Bobby’s been more my dad than anyone.

“But, I just can’t hate him, y’know. I want to. I want to lash out at him and curse him and tell him that he fucked me over and why wasn’t I enough, why wasn’t Sam enough after Mom died to give him something to fight for? Why didn’t he care enough about us? I want to wail on him and punch him until my hands bleed, but then at the same time I want to wrap my arms around him and tell him that he’s my Dad and I love him and I forgive him because I know he tried his best, even if his best was shit.”

Castiel was crying right along with his husband at this point, not able to form words to be able to offer verbal comfort. Setting the photo album aside gently, Castiel wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist and pulled the other man into his chest and cradled him in a tight embrace until both of them were cried out.

“Is there some place we should go? Do you want to go…” Castiel trailed off, not sure if his husband would be receptive to going to his father’s grave, which most likely would be beside his mother’s.

“Naw,” Dean said, swiping the backs of his hands over his still wet eyes. “Sammy and I talked about it, and neither one of us feels right about going to the grave. We said our goodbyes to him years ago.”

“Thank you for sharing this with me, beloved,” Castiel said, pressing a chaste kiss to his husband’s lips. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, Cas,” Dean said, softly, blushing somewhat at the endearment Castiel used only in their most intimate moments.

The two of them took turns in the bathroom, cleaning up and washing wet faces and reddened eyes, before returning to their bed, more emotionally exhausted than either thought possible.

Dean immediately turned onto his side, back toward his husband, offering himself for snuggling. Castiel didn’t hesitate to turn off the light and wrap himself tightly around his husband, each of them taking comfort in the presence of the other.

“I wish Sammy would’ve known him,” Dean said, long after Castiel thought the green-eyed man had fallen asleep. “One of my biggest regrets is that Sam’s only memories of our father are of the cold, distant man he became, not of what he was before. I used to try to tell Sammy stories of what life was like before Mom died, but he never believed me. He always thought I was putting too rosy a gloss on the story to stand up for Dad. I just wish he would have been able to see.”

Castiel hummed in assent. “I wish I could have met that John Winchester, I think I might have liked him.”

Dean nodded and squeezed his husband’s hand gently, but with utmost affection.

“He was the greatest man I never really knew.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have taken a rather extended, and unintentional hiatus from writing. I never expected to be gone quite so long, and I am finding it a little hard to get back in to the groove. This story is one that I have had rattling around in my head for a very long time, and because I felt so comfortable with this verse and this version of Dean and Castiel, I thought this was the best way to dip my toe back in to the writing pool. I hope you enjoy, and I hope to see you all again very soon.
> 
> Thanks for all your love and support <3


End file.
